The Socialist Alternative (also known as SocAlt or SAlt) is a pyramid-like "activist" group which operates at major universities across Australia. They are infamous amongst students and alumni for their predatory practices and virtue signalling, and despised by activists for co-opting true grassroots movements. Salt operates several fronts, including:

• Student Action
• Students for Palestine
• Campaign against Racism and Fascism
• Their newspaper, "Red Flag"

They also hold a 2 day "Marxism" conference each year, with an entrance fee of up to $180 for university students, and up to $60 for high school students. They also have a well-documented history of co-opting Indigenous rights movements in order to sell their paper. In recent months, their operations have expanded to using the Israeli government's invasion of Gaza to boost their own numbers. Members of Socialist Alternative's national executive have been quoted as describing Israel's invasion and occupation of Gaza as a "gift to left-wing activists".

Socialist Alternative's predatory and cult-like practices, including the shunning of ex-members, language control, and cover-ups of sexual abuse from senior members are also well-documented.

Most concerningly, Socialist Alternative's most prolific members have engaged in justification of pedophilia. For example, in a 2005 article authored by National Executive member Sandra Bloodworth (who last spoke at the 2024 Marxism Conference and wrote other key policy documents for the organisation) argues that children deserve the autonomy to decide whether they would like to have 'consensual' relationships with adults. In the very same article, Bloodworth also argues for the abolition of age of consent laws which, by design, exist to protect children from criminals. The full article has since been removed from Socialist Alternative's website but can be found here

Socialist Alternative is an organisation which, by account and by admission, is constructed around predatory and exploitative practices. Inherent in such an organisation is a culture that defends pedophilia. Do we trust such an organisation to continue recruiting young and impressionable students for the foreseeable future? In recent years, SAlt has moved towards recruiting high school students for Palestine activism. Can we be absolutely sure that such young people will not become targets for horrific abuse?

The time to act is now. No more students and young people can be victims of this predatory organisation. We call upon student unions and universities across the country, and especially the QUT Guild and University of Queensland Union (UQU) to immediately put a stop to SAlt's operations upon our campuses, which are supposed to be safe spaces of teaching and learning. We urge the QUT Guild and UQU to immediately deregister the 'Socialist Alternative QUT' and 'Socialist Alternative UQ' clubs (until further notice) and launch immediate investigations into SAlt's activities on campus and allocation of funds through elected student offices.